Hurst Out

Quoted from diehardmariner

I listened to the DN35 podcast this morning and the guest was Jack Johnson, former Town Press/Media/creator of sticker books.

Anyway, he made a really good point in reflection of 3 years ago.  In fact just under 3 years ago.  The low point that season and the point when I was absolutely convinced we would go down was Coventry away.  We had seen no bounce from Jolley coming in, had been shown up away at Lincoln the previous week and then having hung up for most the game just collapsed to a 4-0 defeat at the Ricoh.  

That left us 3 points above second bottom Chesterfield who had two games in hand.  This is with 7 games to go. We then went onto pick up a point in the next game and lost the one after.  Of the final 5 games, we picked up 13 points and finished 18th in the end, 13 points ahead of the Chesterfield side who were breathing down our necks a matter of weeks before.  In fact the day after the Coventry game I remember watching Chesterfield played Notts County, won and looked absolutely full of it.  It was also the day Dembele gave the most half-arsed interview with Humberside in which he pretty much admitted he couldn't wait to get away.  It didn't feel a great day to be a Town fan.

But the point is that it can transform so quickly.  Are we excrement at the minute?  God yes, we're bloody awful.  Is it looking bleak?  100%  it is, I can't see where the next point is coming from.  But then I felt this way after the Coventry game and we still only managed to pick up a single point from the next two games before it transformed.  We've not got 7 games left, we've got 16.

We stayed up that season with a front three of Harry Cardwell, JJ Hooper and Harry Clifton.   That's a non-scoring striker who was absolutely wet behind the ears, an early incarnation of a journeyman striker playing on the left wing and a non-attacking central midfielder with his first run in the team playing on the right.  In fact the Chesterfield game that turned it round we started with Scott Vernon and JJ Hooper up top!

Hurst has really disappointed me in the last few games but I still rate him higher than Jolley.  I also think that there's a better bunch of players in the squad now than Jolley had to get a tune out of 3 years ago.  

Improvements are needed, both in terms of performances and how we set ourselves up.  These improvements need to come bloody sharpish.  But it's not over.  Far from it.

Quoted from diehardmariner

I listened to the DN35 podcast this morning and the guest was Jack Johnson, former Town Press/Media/creator of sticker books.

Anyway, he made a really good point in reflection of 3 years ago.  In fact just under 3 years ago.  The low point that season and the point when I was absolutely convinced we would go down was Coventry away.  We had seen no bounce from Jolley coming in, had been shown up away at Lincoln the previous week and then having hung up for most the game just collapsed to a 4-0 defeat at the Ricoh.  

That left us 3 points above second bottom Chesterfield who had two games in hand.  This is with 7 games to go. We then went onto pick up a point in the next game and lost the one after.  Of the final 5 games, we picked up 13 points and finished 18th in the end, 13 points ahead of the Chesterfield side who were breathing down our necks a matter of weeks before.  In fact the day after the Coventry game I remember watching Chesterfield played Notts County, won and looked absolutely full of it.  It was also the day Dembele gave the most half-arsed interview with Humberside in which he pretty much admitted he couldn't wait to get away.  It didn't feel a great day to be a Town fan.

But the point is that it can transform so quickly.  Are we excrement at the minute?  God yes, we're bloody awful.  Is it looking bleak?  100%  it is, I can't see where the next point is coming from.  But then I felt this way after the Coventry game and we still only managed to pick up a single point from the next two games before it transformed.  We've not got 7 games left, we've got 16.

We stayed up that season with a front three of Harry Cardwell, JJ Hooper and Harry Clifton.   That's a non-scoring striker who was absolutely wet behind the ears, an early incarnation of a journeyman striker playing on the left wing and a non-attacking central midfielder with his first run in the team playing on the right.  In fact the Chesterfield game that turned it round we started with Scott Vernon and JJ Hooper up top!

Hurst has really disappointed me in the last few games but I still rate him higher than Jolley.  I also think that there's a better bunch of players in the squad now than Jolley had to get a tune out of 3 years ago.  

Improvements are needed, both in terms of performances and how we set ourselves up.  These improvements need to come bloody sharpish.  But it's not over.  Far from it.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

This being a fans forum people will obviously have differing opinions on the best way to get us out of this mess.

Some may want to stick with a manager who is obviously struggling, despite getting his own players in; some might wish for another change in the hope we can get some reaction from the players.

Some posters have argued other teams might be dragged into the relegation fight and others hope the National League will be voided, both of which are long shots and with the first one, it wouldn't matter anyway unless we start picking up some wins, which brings us back to whether we should stick or twist with the manager.

Every conceivable thing seems to have gone against us, but some might argue although not in a great position we did not look nailed on certainties for relegation when Holloway left, but we do now.

The probability is that Hurst will see the season out, for good or ill. If that is the case he will obviously have to find a winning formula but the team is currently so bad it is difficult to see how.

None of us has the answers; we are just commenting on events in real-time. I wanted Holloway to stay and put things right till circumstances dictated otherwise; I was happy to see Hurst return presuming he would tighten us up and grind out some wins. That has not happened either but we only know these things after the event.

If we get relegated with Hurst we should have made a change; if we don't congratulations to those who wanted him to stay. Football is all about opinions and long may it continue, but like everybody else, I am desperate to see the team turn it around.

Quoted from BobbyCummingsTackle

I was reading this morning that Barnsley have won 6 in a row and have gone from looking over their shoulder to being on the verge of the play offs in the championship - this stuff happens!!

Quoted from Tommy

But in recent weeks he's not telling enough of the firefighters to stand close enough to the fire. He's got most of them stood so far back that the water from their hose doesn't reach the burning building, so they've not got much chance of winning the battle.

Re-arrange/re-position some of the firefighters and we might give ourselves a chance.

Quoted from Sir Matt Tease

Not at Blundell Park it doesn't !

Quoted from oochiad

What worries me is setting up last Saturday without wingers, with Hanson and Payne on. How could that possibly work. Just plain ridiculous. Hurst needs to be questioned on his thinking there......

Quoted from ska face

Mental how there’s always this pool of out of work managers who would be willing to come here and would definitely be better than whichever manager we have at the time. But despite having 5 different managers, plus 4 different caretaker managers, since 2016 somehow we’ve just decided not to bother getting one of these decent managers.

Still, always an interesting discussion. Every week.

Quoted from ginnywings

Without wanting to pick on you specifically, as there are plenty of other posts with the same theme, it always gives me a wry smile when fans question the decisions of a manager, and basically say that he doesn't know what he's doing and if only he would listen to the fans, who can absolutely see where he is going wrong, all would be right with the world.

Do said fans not think he might just have a bit more insight into what is more likely to work and what is less likely to work?

It's not the plans that are at fault, it's the implementation of those plans as far as I can tell. The players are just not doing the right things and yes, It's down to the manager to coach them to do the right things, but the best laid plans won't work if the players don't carry out the instructions in the correct manner.

From listening to PH, I think he is trying to grind out a few results and get a bit of a run going. He's mentioned Stevenage more than once and the way they have slowly but surely gathered momentum by first getting a few draws and eventually building confidence to start getting a win or two here and there. We have to start getting clean sheets and build from there, but fans just want wins and think we should be going gung ho, all out attack.

I don't expect that he will change his stance much until it becomes necessary to take more risks and we are not at that stage yet. Hurst has a certain way he does things, we know that and we knew it before he came back to the club. I'm sure he will be having sleepless nights thinking about what he can do to change things and we just have to trust that he gets it right.

Yes it's dull, yes it's boring, yes it's scary because it isn't working, but he's shown in the past more than once that he knows how to get results. The fear is that we simply haven't got the requisite players to achieve it, despite his recruitment, because I doubt he got the players in that he wanted. We are just not attractive enough to get them at the moment.